Saturday, December 1, 2012

Cheer: Jim Harbaugh. Not into his pomposity. But the coach
of the San Francisco
49ers sure can make the tough call. He could easily have stuck with Alex Smith.
The quarterback shot the Niners so close to an NFL title last season. And had
them rushing to one this fall. Yet Harbaugh benched him in favor of Colin
Kaepernick. Hard enough to spell the Dutch name. But to spell a former No. 1
draft choice and leave your prospects to a near rookie? Takes balls. Footballs.
Also takes brains. Harbaugh is right. The Flying Dutchman is exactly what
Frisco needs to zip past the Giants, Falcons and Pats to the championship. Will
be the Niners’ first since the 1994 season. All because the coach went
callin’ on Colin.

Jeer: Coaches who lack the Harbaugh backbone. Namely Rex
Ryan, who wrecks the Jets. And Mike Tomlin, who’s been out of it with the
Steelers. Ryan sticks with Mark Sanchez. That’s the safe nonmove. Sanchez
shot Ryan to two straight conference title games, so the coach sticks with him
at quarterback. While the Jets dive toward the Hudson. Would take Ryan’s considerable
gut to eject Off The Mark and put Tim Tebow in the pilot’s seat. Rex
evidently listens to Tebow naysayers wallowing in his style rather than his
stellar record and feels frozen. Ryan simply can’t shift. Until
he’s pushed out the door at season’s end.

As for Tomlin, he sees Ben Roethlisberger go down and
shoehorns in Charlie Batch. This was the safe decision. Batch had won a few for Pittsburgh. But he’s
old. Played in Detroit
so long ago, probably replaced Bobby
Lane. Harbaugh would’ve pulled the trigger
with Brian Hoyer, the young gun who backed up Tom Brady in New
England the past three years. Better yet, he’s the son of Ed
Hoyer, a buddy of mine from our Heidelberg
High School days in the
1970s. Tomlin is no Harbaugh. Went with Batch. And lost against lowly Cleveland. Time for
some Steel in that back, Mike.

Cheer: The Knicks. This is my old flame, back when they
lit up in the NBA in the early 1970s. They even kept me warm during a Boy Scout
camporee in Germany
while winning their first world trophy. Because of the time difference, I
stayed up till dawn in my pup tent yelling for Clyde Frazier and Dick Barnett
to beat the Lakers. Ultimately they did, in seven games. Now they’re
back, in the thick of NBA Eastern Conference contention.

Jeer:The Knicks. For letting Jeremy Lin go. His exciting
brand of basketball was THE reason I watched New York
do in Dallas
last season. These days the guard plays in Houston.
The NBA had a sweet star in the Big Apple. Now he’s gone to Texas, as the old book
title went. David Stern, the commish whose name means Star, should’ve
shone during the summer and kept Lin in Madison Square
Garden. As it is,
Lin’s a Rocket man lost on the regular fan.

Cheer: The Mets’ cap logo. The same NY design as
that of baseball's old New York Giants. Now if only my team could win like
today’s Giants, who wear their orange and black in San Francisco while reigning as champions for
the second time in three years. The Mets stole half the Giant hue, orange, and
half that of the Dodgers, blue, when they filled New York’s National League void in
1962. Yet the Mets couldn’t duplicate the winning of the Giants and
Dodgers, who after moving to the West Coast tied atop the NL 50 years ago. The
Mets still can’t keep pace, finishing 24 games out of first this year. At
least they look good with their hat, which I loyally wear every day.

Jeer: Altered uniforms in the National Football League.
Especially the Steeler ones. You catch the striped, prison garb of a few weeks
ago? More asinine than the pink shoes every team wears in October. Bring back
Johnny Unitas, black hightops, horseshoe on the helmet, done. Thing of beauty.

Cheer: Fight songs that nobody knows, namely those of the
Universities of Illinois and Maryland.

Jeer: Pedestrian college tunes that run ad nauseam only because Texas and Southern Cal
win on the football field.

Cheer:
TV theme songs that rock. Particularly for the NFL on Fox, college
basketball on ESPN, pro hoops on ABC. Too bad the NBA left NBC, home of
the hoppingest number of all time.

Jeer: The CBS ditty for pro football. Doesn't have it.

Cheer:
Johnny Football. The coolest nickname in sports since
White Shoes for old Houston Oiler receiver Billy Johnson. As for this
Texas A&M quarterback, this is all anyone calls Johnny Manziel,
especially
since he pronounces his surname all wrong: Manzell. This week when
college
football passes America’s
top trophy his way, he can go by Johnny Heisman.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

June 6, 2012—68 years after D-Day, when a wave of heroes stormed Normandy on the way to nailing the Nazis.

Among the American stars was Creighton Abrams, whose
tanks rolled through France toward Germany years before he commanded
the Vietnam drawdown. It's a story Scott Smith captures solidly for
Investor's Business Daily and for which I had the honor to edit.

Abrams was the kind of soldier President Reagan
lauded in his "Boys of Pointe du Hoc" speech on D-Day's 40th
anniversary. I watched in awe as Reagan delivered Peggy Noonan's line on that Hoc
cliff after Secret Service agents cleared the
Pointe for the president's chopper landing. They did it smoothly, even
making Walter Cronkite traipse through airport machines.

Twenty-eight years after that 1984 R-Day —Reagan
Day —
I recall it as one of the grandest of my life. It felt so special
when I related it to my Dad, Charles Dickens Fox, himself a Bronze Star
recipient from the WWII European front. He loved reliving history, as
when we hit Bastogne, Belgium, ground zero of the Battle of the Bulge,
and drove to Luxembourg's cemetery, the resting spot of Gen. George
Patton, who died in Heidelberg so sadly after a paralyzing car crash
just months beyond his Hitler-crushing triumph.

So now D-Day 2012. This time the crisis is personal.
My wife, Maria, is having heart surgery. I'm at the hospital awaiting
good news. And thinking of good times.

One of the finest involves another top soldier and great American: Bob Wicker (swinging above at his favorite venue, the golf course).

Bob was my sports editor at Stars & Stripes in
Germany in the 1980s and '90s. Before that he was a GI with the sweetest
job of all time: S&S reporter in Paris.

Now he lives near Reno, Nev., and I hope to see him in Vegas at a Stripes reunion in the fall.

Bob is pillar. He was a rock of a newspaperman, solidified with creativity and integrity. Think NCIS' Gibbs with a laugh. Or new TV badass Longmire without a gun.

Now
Bob is a semiretired husband (to a champion wife, Kathy) and father (to a titlist son, Thomas) whom all of his old
sportswriters — Bob Dillier, Tim Boivin, Rob Staggenborg, Tom Saunders,
Rusty Bryan, Klint Johnson, Ben Abrams —revere to this day.

Cool thoughts on D-Day, which lives forever. And now that my wife is safely out of surgery, it's even more reason for me to celebrate.

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Tim Tebow has flown into town with that number on his jersey and another digit in his sights: 1.

By the time he parks his left, bulging arm behind center, he'll be quarterbacking the Jets to heights they haven't seen since January 1969.

That would be on top of the Super Bowl.

Guaranteed.

He might even do it in white cleats to go with the white duds and green trim of the Jets' greatest pilot, Joe Namath.

Did someone mention Mark Sanchez? Sure, he passed the Jets to AFC finals in his first two seasons. But that's as far as he's going.

You knew he reached his limit in that Steeler curtain call of January 2011. When Pittsburgh's pass blockers were done grounding Sanchez, the old Trojan made USC stand for under size child.

So he has the style that scouts, hence the talk-radio pack, hence brain-dead fans think is so crucial. Wow, he has the footwork that Tebow doesn't! As my word whiz sister Debbie says, if they want footwork, hire Fred Astaire.

No, I want a champion. So bring it on, Tebow. Back up Sanchez for a while and win at once, the way you did as a freshman at national champion Florida in 2006.

Then grip the team with the vigor of 2008 when you inspired the Gators to another national title.

What was that about the Steelers? Ah yes, the team Tebow trashed in this past season's NFL playoffs. This was no child facing Pittsburgh. This was a Denver Dude who rode the Broncos to victory.

And what of the Broncos? They gave up on 24-year-young Tebow to make way for 36-year-old Peyton Manning.

He of the four neck surgeries and multiple playoff chokes.

Looks like Denver landed the wrong Manning. Eli's two titles double his brother's.

As it is, Eli is the Giant of New York. But look out.

Tebow Time is coming.

Extra points:

Give it up: Republicans should back gay marriage. There. Said it. Tired of fighting this issue, even if I make total sense in saying government has no role in marriage and that if lez wants to get hitched, do it and quit waiting for a mommy gov pat on the head.

Meanwhile, gays are relentless on this matter. And as states vote to legalize guy-guy and gal-gal matrimony, the bandwagon is rolling. Better jump aboard.

If righty says I do, think of the positives.

1. A gang of gays could vote straight-ticket GOP. Makes sense. This is one rich constituency, thanks to no kids to shell out for. Gotta to be tired of tax-and-waste lefty and ready to rush to the Republican altar.

2. Trade the cost of more gov marriage certificates with the killing of two rat-role departments, Energy and Education. Win-win.

3. Finally we'd see an end to this boring marriage belligerence.

4. I could become a divorce lawyer and make a fortune.

Beatle mania:

Top 5 songs from the Fab Four that the "Yesterday"-brainwashed masses know nothing about:

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Terrific timing. Three days later, on Feb. 7, 2012, the author he was named after celebrates his 200th birthday.

Charles Dickens and Charles Dickens Fox. So the former wrote "A Christmas Carol" among his library of brilliance. But on the pedestal of my life, Charles D. Fox stands tallest. He was a fearless World War II and Korean War Army officer. He shone as a husband and father. And so what if he didn't produce "Great Expectations"; Dad wielded the cleverest fountain pen I ever saw in action.

Typical missives (his word) included:

Alas alack, anon and enow felicity from Shakespearean English.

Inconsistencies of opinion, due to a change of circumstance, are often justifiable, a variation of Daniel Webster's line.

Sydney, please draw my bath, from his WWII trans-Atlantic crossing.

Then there were Dad's names for me:

Buster, from Buster Brown.

Lefty, from Lefty Grove, joined the vernacular after finishing in the running for greatest righty pitcher in the Stars & Stripes baseball centennial poll in 1969.

Boy, because I was one.

Right this minute I'm watching highlights of the January 1972 Super Bowl, the one in which Dallas won its first title by manhandling Miami. And man, does that rewind our joy watching it together.

In those black-and-white days living in Germany, Americans had to find an Air Force base to catch big games on TV. So we traipsed (another Dad word) an hour north from Heidelberg to Frankfurt's Rhein-Main Air Base to see Tom Landry finally win the big one.

How we could've cheered together now. ESPN. NFL Network. MLB Network. The NBA all over the tube and Internet. Email. Texting. FaceTime.

Charlie Fox and I would be having a ball discoursing, especially now in the thick of Super Bowl week. Forty years after that Cowboy-Dolphin clash comes Giants-Pats. Dad was a New Yorker. He relished recalling the 1958 Greatest Game Ever Played, the one Johnny Unitas pulled out for the Baltimore Colts at Yankee Stadium.

Eleven years after that, Dad and I huddled near the radio as the Jets' Joe Namath returned football's crown to New York by stunning Unitas and the Colts.

Gotta believe that now Charlie Fox would be pulling for the Giants. He and I would be tackling the Eli-Brady rivalry, the parallels with the 2007 season, whether New York's D could pressure Brady the way it did in the Giants' upset four years ago.

I visualize us pulling for New York and wondering how the oddsmakers could make New England a three-point favorite.

Wish he'd be watching with me Sunday. Wish he were alive and not at Arlington National Cemetery, where we buried him in 1989.

As it is, old Heidelberg buddies Derrick and Warren Jones will be here for kickoff. We'll roar for the Giants and laugh up our growing-up days.

You can bet that a couple of times one name will bounce around the Bowl: Charles Dickens Fox.

Bucky Fox is an author and editor in Southern California: BuckyFox@yahoo.com.